Goodman, Benny
Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz clarinetist and bandleader known as the “King of Swing”.
In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in the United States. His concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City on January 16, 1938, is described by critic Bruce Eder as “the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz’s ‘coming out’ party to the world of ‘respectable’ music.”
Goodman’s bands started the careers of many jazz musicians. During an era of racial segregation, he led one of the first integrated jazz groups. He performed nearly to the end of his life while exploring an interest in classical music.
Goodman moved to New York City and became a session musician for radio, Broadway musicals, and in studios.In addition to clarinet, he sometimes played alto saxophone and baritone saxophone. In a Victor recording session on March 21, 1928, he played alongside Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey, and Joe Venuti in the All-Star Orchestra directed by Nathaniel Shilkret. He played with the bands of Red Nichols, Ben Selvin, Ted Lewis, and Isham Jones and recorded for Brunswick under the name Benny Goodman’s Boys, a band that featured Glenn Miller. In 1928, Goodman and Miller wrote “Room 1411“, which was released as a Brunswick 78.
He reached the charts for the first time when he recorded “He’s Not Worth Your Tears” with a vocal by Scrappy Lambert for Melotone. After signing with Columbia in 1934, he had top ten hits with “Ain’t Cha Glad?” and “I Ain’t Lazy, I’m Just Dreamin'” sung by Jack Teagarden, “Ol’ Pappy” sung by Mildred Bailey, and “Riffin’ the Scotch” sung by Billie Holiday. An invitation to play at the Billy Rose Music Hall led to his creation of an orchestra for the four-month engagement. The orchestra recorded “Moonglow“, which became a number one hit and was followed by the Top Ten hits “Take My Word” and “Bugle Call Rag“.
NBC hired Goodman for the radio program Let’s Dance. John Hammond asked Fletcher Henderson if he wanted to write arrangements for Goodman, and Henderson agreed. During the Depression, Henderson disbanded his orchestra because he was in debt. Goodman hired Henderson’s band members to teach his musicians how to play the music.
Goodman’s band was one of three to perform on Let’s Dance, playing arrangements by Henderson along with hits such as “Get Happy” and “Limehouse Blues” by Spud Murphy.
Goodman’s portion of the program was broadcast too late at night to attract a large audience on the east coast. He and his band remained on Let’s Dance until May of that year when a strike by employees of the series’ sponsor, Nabisco, forced the cancellation of the radio show. An engagement was booked at Manhattan’s Roosevelt Grill filling in for Guy Lombardo, but the audience expected “sweet” music and Goodman’s band was unsuccessful.
Goodman spent six months performing on Let’s Dance, and during that time he recorded six more Top Ten hits for Columbia.
In late 1937, Goodman’s publicist Wynn Nathanson suggested that Goodman and his band play Carnegie Hall in New York City. The sold-out concert was held on the evening of January 16, 1938. It is regarded as one of the most significant in jazz history. After years of work by musicians from all over the country, jazz had finally been accepted by mainstream audiences. Recordings of the concert were made, but even by the technology of the day the equipment used was not of the finest quality. Acetate recordings of the concert were made, and aluminum studio masters were cut.“The recording was produced by Albert Marx as a special gift for his wife, Helen Ward, and a second set for Benny. He contracted Artists Recording Studio to make two sets. Artists Recording only had two turntables so they farmed out the second set to Raymond Scott’s recording studio….It was Benny’s sister-in-law who found the recordings in Benny’s apartment [in 1950] and brought them to Benny’s attention. Goodman took the discovered recording to Columbia, and a selection was issued on LP as The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert.
Goodman continued his success throughout the late 1930s with his big band, his trio and quartet, and the sextet formed in August 1939, the same month Goodman returned to Columbia Records after four years with RCA Victor. At Columbia, John Hammond, his future brother-in-law, produced most of his sessions. By the mid-1940s, however, big bands had lost much of their popularity. In 1941, ASCAP had a licensing war with music publishers. From 1942 to 1944 and again in 1948, the musicians’ union went on strike against the major record labels in the United States, and singers acquired the popularity that the big bands had once enjoyed. During the 1942–44 strike, the War Department approached the union and requested the production of V-Discs, a set of records containing new recordings for soldiers to listen to, thereby boosting the rise of new artists. Also, by the late 1940s, swing was no longer the dominant style of jazz musicians.
By the 1940s, some jazz musicians were borrowing from classical music, while others, such as Charlie Parker, were broadening the rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic vocabulary of swing to create bebop (or bop). The bebop recordings Goodman made for Capitol were praised by critics. For his bebop band he hired Buddy Greco, Zoot Sims, and Wardell Gray. He consulted his friend Mary Lou Williams for advice on how to approach the music of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. Pianist Mel Powell was also an adviser in 1945. Goodman enjoyed bebop. When he heard Thelonious Monk, he said, “I like it, I like that very much. I like the piece and I like the way he played it … I think he’s got a sense of humor and he’s got some good things there.”He also admired Swedish clarinetist Stan Hasselgard. But after playing with a bebop band for over a year, he returned to his swing band because he concluded that was what he knew best. In 1953, he said, “Maybe bop has done more to set music back for years than anything … Basically it’s all wrong. It’s not even knowing the scales … Bop was mostly publicity and people figuring angles.”
In 1949 he studied with clarinetist Reginald Kell, requiring a change in technique: “instead of holding the mouthpiece between his front teeth and lower lip, as he had done since he first took a clarinet in hand 30 years earlier, Goodman learned to adjust his embouchure to the use of both lips and even to use new fingering techniques. He had his old finger calluses removed and started to learn how to play his clarinet again—almost from scratch.”Goodman commissioned compositions for clarinet and chamber ensembles or orchestra that have become standard pieces of classical repertoire. He premiered works by composers, such as Contrasts by Béla Bartók; Clarinet Concerto No. 2, Op. 115 by Malcolm Arnold; Derivations for Clarinet and Band by Morton Gould; Sonata for Clarinet and Piano by Francis Poulenc, and Clarinet Concerto by Aaron Copland. Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs by Leonard Bernstein was commissioned for Woody Herman‘s big band, but it was premiered by Goodman. Herman was the dedicatee (1945) and first performer (1946) of Igor Stravinsky’s Ebony Concerto, but many years later Stravinsky made another recording with Goodman as the soloist.
He made a recording of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in July 1956 with the Boston Symphony String Quartet at the Berkshire Festival; on the same occasion he recorded Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch. He also recorded the clarinet concertos of Weber
After forays outside swing, Goodman started a new band in 1953. According to Donald Clarke, this was not a happy time for Goodman. He reunited the band to tour with Louis Armstrong. But he insulted Armstrong and “was appalled at the vaudeville aspects of Louis’s act…a contradiction of everything Goodman stood for”. Armstrong left Goodman hanging during a joint performance where Goodman called Armstrong back onstage to wrap up the show. Armstrong refused to perform alongside Goodman, which led essentially to the end of their friendship.
Goodman’s band appeared as a specialty act in the films The Big Broadcast of 1937; Hollywood Hotel (1938); Syncopation (1942); The Powers Girl (1942); Stage Door Canteen (1943); The Gang’s All Here (1943); Sweet and Low-Down (1944), Goodman’s only starring feature; Make Mine Music (1946) and A Song Is Born (1948).
He continued to play on records and in small groups. In the early 1970s he collaborated with George Benson after the two met taping a PBS tribute to John Hammond, recreating some of Goodman’s duets with Charlie Christian. Benson appeared on Goodman’s album Seven Come Eleven. Goodman continued to play swing, but he practiced and performed classical pieces and commissioned them for clarinet. In 1960 he performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto with conductor Alfredo Antonini at the Lewisohn Stadium in New York City. Despite health problems, he continued to perform, his last concert six days before his death. Goodman died June 13, 1986, from a heart attack while taking a nap at his apartment in Manhattan House.
